Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Wednesday said the ISRO scientists did not receive salaries for 17 months after a similar story was disproved by an investigative agency of the Government of India Press Information Bureau. The former Congress leader had mentioned that the Prime Minister should have been aware of the payment to ISRO’s researchers when Chandrayaan 3 made its moon landing attempt.
“We are pleased that ISRO scientists are working hard to ensure Chandrayaan’s safe lunar landing. For their success, we pray to the Lord. But there’s a report in the papers that in 17 months, the scientists who made it happen didn’t get paid. That is something the Prime Minister should also take note of,” Singh told ANI.
Amit Malviya, the head of the BJP’s IT cell, tweeted in response to the former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, “The abominable Digvijay Singh called out for spreading #Fake News that ISRO is all set to make India proud. Although the Congress despises Prime Minister Modi, it despises a strong, rising India even more because a confident India would never support the Congress. Congress complains as India rejoices over Chandrayaan-3.
Recently, an entrepreneur and political analyst Tehseen Poonawalla claimed in a radio interview that the Indian Space Research Organisation’s scientists hadn’t received salaries for three months. Poonawalla claimed in an episode of ‘The Ranveer Show’ Podcast that scientists from ISRO had not been paid salaries for the past three months. “Is that fair? And I have a problem with this government about that. We are very proud of the Indian Space Research Organisation. It is an excellent organization. I haven’t been paid three months worth of wages, and feel free to question me on that.”
The claim was subsequently disproved by PIB’s fact check, which said that scientists from ISRO are paid on the last day of each month.
The Indian Space Research Organisation on Wednesday announced an automated landing sequence is set to begin as soon as hours have passed before the much anticipated grand finale of Chandrayaan-3, in which it attempts a delicate landing at moon’s uncharted South Pole.
A post on ISRO’s official handle on X, formerly Twitter, read, “All set to initiate the Automatic Landing Sequence (ALS). At around 17:44 hours IST, we waited for the Lander Module to arrive at the designated point. When the ALS command is received, an LM will activate its propulsion engines for a powered descent”.”The Command Operations Team will continue to verify the sequential execution of commands. Live streaming of MOX operations is scheduled to start at 17:20 IST.”
The Indian Space Research Organization has been maintaining that the spacecraft’s state of health is unaltered since it was launched on July 14th. On August 5, Chandrayaan-3 was successfully sent into lunar orbit after a number of significant maneuvers and it successfully soft landed on August 23rd.
